Drive Laskin Road past First Colonial this month and you'll see two different versions of Hilltop happening at once. On one side, chain link fencing has gone up around the strip that's been home to Ollie's Bargain Outlet, Dollar Tree, Bojangles, and Kelly's Tavern for years. Cross the road, and the Fresh Market parking lot looks exactly like it always does. Same shopping district, same name on everyone's lips when they say "meet me at Hilltop," and right now, two completely different clocks.
Most Great Neck residents talk about Hilltop as one place. It isn't. It's at least three separate shopping centers strung along the same stretch of Laskin Road, and this fall they're not aging at the same speed. One side never needed to change. The other side is getting rebuilt from the facade in, and the reason why tells you more about where this corridor is headed than any single new store opening does.
Two Hilltops, One Road
Regency Hilltop Shopping Center, the stretch between roughly 1932 and 1956 Laskin Road, has run on a practical, budget-anchored tenant mix for a long time: Ollie's, Dollar Tree, Planet Fitness, Bojangles, Running Etc., Dollar Bank, Kelly's Tavern. Useful stores, but the kind of center where a few empty storefronts in a row stopped being unusual. Longtime shoppers have noticed the same thing for a while now: more vacant windows, less foot traffic between stores, a center that people drove to for one specific errand rather than a stretch they wandered.
A few hundred yards up the road, Hilltop North never had that problem. Fink's Jewelers, The Fresh Market, Ethan Allen, CycleBar, Baker's Crust. The parking lot fills up on a Tuesday afternoon the same way it does on a Saturday. That side of Hilltop already went through its version of a facelift years ago and has stayed full since.
So when people say "Hilltop is changing," they usually mean one specific corner of it. The rest of the corridor was never the problem.
What The Fence Is Actually For
The fencing showing up around Regency Hilltop this year isn't cosmetic patchwork. According to a May 2026 announcement from S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., the center is undergoing a full renovation program that includes upgraded building facades, newly designed storefronts, enhanced landscaping, and the addition of Ross Dress for Less as a new anchor.
The detail worth paying attention to isn't the new anchor tenant. It's the central pedestrian walkway included in that same renovation plan. A strip built around driving from storefront to storefront doesn't need a walkway. Adding one is a signal that the ownership group wants Regency Hilltop to work the way Hilltop North already does, as a place you park once and walk between stops, not a row of separate errands.
CoVaBiz Magazine's August/September 2026 business roundup confirms the timeline: renovations are expected to wrap ahead of the 2026 holiday shopping season. That means the fencing you're navigating around on a random Tuesday this fall is a countdown, not a permanent condition. If the schedule holds, Regency Hilltop should look meaningfully different by the time holiday shopping traffic picks up in November and December, right as Ross opens its doors.
The Corner That Isn't On Either Directory
The most talked-about opening on this stretch of Laskin Road in the past year didn't happen inside Hilltop North or Regency Hilltop at all. It happened at La Promenade Distinctive Shops, a smaller center most longtime locals don't picture when they say "Hilltop," even though it sits right in the district.
Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee started in 2025 as a mobile operation, a retro pink horse trailer that founders Samantha Colonna and Abraham Quirantes bought for around two thousand dollars and rebuilt themselves. Quirantes serves on active duty in the Navy, and the two ran the trailer as a side project between his deployments, parking at rotating locations around Virginia Beach and building a following mostly through word of mouth and social media. The lines got long enough, fast enough, that the trailer stopped being a side project.
In January 2026, Sleepy Cowgirl opened its first true storefront at La Promenade, a few minutes from both Hilltop centers. It's a small detail with a bigger implication: the corridor's newest local business isn't inside either of the shopping centers people default to when they think about this stretch of road. The map locals carry in their heads for "Hilltop" is already smaller than the actual district.
What Changes Between Now And The Holidays
For anyone running errands along this stretch through the fall, here's the practical version of all of this:
- Regency Hilltop will keep some level of construction fencing, temporary parking shifts, and partial storefront closures through the season, with Ross Dress for Less expected to open as renovations wrap ahead of the 2026 holiday shopping season.
- Hilltop North isn't part of this renovation and should run exactly as it has, Fresh Market, CycleBar, Baker's Crust, and the rest operating without disruption.
- La Promenade, home to Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee, is worth checking for current hours before a visit. It's a young, popular business still settling into a fixed location after more than a year as a mobile operation, and lines have been long enough that showing up without a plan means a wait.
| Hilltop North | Regency Hilltop | |
|---|---|---|
| Anchor businesses | The Fresh Market, Ethan Allen, CycleBar, Fink's Jewelers, Baker's Crust | Ollie's Bargain Outlet, Dollar Tree, Planet Fitness, Bojangles, Kelly's Tavern |
| Current activity | Steady, unaffected by nearby construction | Under active renovation, partial fencing and closures |
| What's changing | Nothing scheduled | New facades, storefronts, landscaping, pedestrian walkway, Ross Dress for Less |
| Timeline | Ongoing as normal | Targeted completion ahead of the 2026 holiday season |
The Map Is Catching Up To Itself
The version of Hilltop most Great Neck residents carry around, one continuous stretch of stores, has never quite matched reality. It's always been at least two different retail centers aging on two different timelines, plus a scattering of smaller shops like La Promenade that don't make it into the mental shorthand at all. What's happening this fall isn't really about a new discount retailer or a coffee shop with a following. It's the older half of that map finally being rebuilt to match the half that already worked, right as a business nobody expected to matter this much proves the map was too small to begin with.
By the time the fencing comes down on Regency Hilltop, both ends of this corridor should finally be running at the same speed for the first time in years.
If you're watching how a specific pocket of Great Neck is changing and want to talk through what it might mean for your own street, or you're simply curious what your home would be worth in today's market, reach out to Robert Ramey and request a Free Home Valuation and Local Market Review.
